Friday, December 08, 2006

Bring on the cold

A unique Christmas tradition of sorts happens today in Iqaluit. Well, Christmas shopping tradition. Northmart is having its annual temperature drop sale. It works pretty simple – however cold it is out, that’s how much of a discount you get. They check every two hours and they don’t count wind chill. Last year, for example, I think we got 24 per cent off of some items. There are restrictions, of course, (I’m looking at the ad right now and trying to figure out what isn’t restricted, actually). So this is the one day of the year that people are really, really hoping for cold temperatures.

Forecase for today? Sunny, with a high of -15 and a low of -21. Not bad, but not great. A few deals to be had, perhaps. Not that we need much or, to be honest, could fit much more in this apartment.

You know, as an aside, I’m reading the “high of -15” and having a small flashback to a Newfoundland music award ceremony that Andrew Younghusband (he of “Canada’s Worst Driver” fame) hosted a few years back. Younghusband was talking about how he and his South African girlfriend had settled into Cavendish (a small community about an hour outside of St. John's, for those of you not in the know) and one winter morning he was awoken by his girlfriend screaming at the clock radio that had just gone off. I’m paraphrasing from memory here.

“There’s no such thing as a high of -2! Why don’t they just say it’s going to be a low of -2 and it’s going to get even fucking lower as the day progresses until we all freeze to death!”

So yeah, she wasn’t handling the cold well. Then again, I know the feeling. I check Environment Canada’s website some mornings and yell out “good news, honey. The high is -19 today” and I can hear the low groan coming from wherever Cathy is in the apartment.